The National Organization for Marriage
(NOM) has called on members to support a proposed GOP bill which
seeks to allow adoption agencies to exclude gay couples.

The Child Welfare Provider Inclusion
Act of 2014, introduced last week by Republican Senators Mike Enzi of
Wyoming and Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, would allow faith-based
agencies opposed to marriage equality to deny service to gay and
lesbian couples.

Catholic-based agencies in several
states have decided to shut down their adoption and foster care
programs rather than place children with married gay couples.

“Faith-based charities and
organizations do an amazing job of administering adoption, foster
care and a host of other services,” Enzi
said in a statement. “Limiting their work because someone
might disagree with what they believe only ends up hurting the
families they could be bringing together.”

The Human Rights Campaign (HRC), the
nation's largest LGBT rights advocate, said the proposed legislation
would allow “rampant” discrimination.

“It's increasingly clear that,
post-Hobby Lobby, some in positions of power believe that
religious freedom should only belong to a few,” HRC's
Ellen Kahn said. “If this bill passes, an Evangelical straight
couple, a single father, or a committed and loving gay and lesbian
couple could find their path to adoption blocked for no reasonable
reason other than naked discrimination.”

“Believing that kids need both a mom
and a dad should not disqualify a service provider from doing their
invaluable work,” Brown said. “They shouldn't be penalized by
the revocation of aid for holding to the common sense principle that
children do best when raised by both a loving mother and father.”